3:41 PM ET Jason Holder has called on his side’s batsmen to show greater consistency in the series against England. Holder, the West Indies captain, feels his batsmen have “shown glimpses” of what is required to achieve more regular success. But he also accepts his team’s batting has “let them down” on occasions and knows

3:00 AM ET Big Picture In case you’ve missed any of the memos from the ECB in recent months, 2019 is a moderately significant year for English cricket. The small matter of a home World Cup, closely followed by the Ashes, offers the sport a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to regain some of the relevance that it

3:46 AM ET Sri Lanka’s bowlers have been urged to believe that they can replicate the success of India’s attack in Australia as they hunt a first Test victory in the country. The Indian bowlers, led by Jasprit Bumrah, were superb as a unit as they secured India’s maiden series victory – 2-1 – in

8:58 AM ET Taskin Ahmed is in contention for a recall to the ODI side on the back of his recent BPL form, according to ODI captain Mashrafe Mortaza. The Bangladesh selectors are likely to announce the squad for the three-match ODI series against New Zealand next month, on Wednesday. Mashrafe also mentioned Sabbir Rahman

4:19 AM ET The local energy company will have extra staff on site at the Gabba during Australia’s day-night Test against Sri Lanka in case of a repeat of the power outage that forced the abandonment of the Big Bash match between Brisbane Heat and Sydney Thunder last week, but officials are confident the problem

11:09 AM ET Saurabh Somani Close Saurabh Somani is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo Gautam Gambhir believes that the likes of MS Dhoni and Shikhar Dhawan should have been asked to play first-class cricket before joining the Indian team for the ODI series in Australia, so that they could have hit the ground running. He

1:28 PM ET Despite rising to No. 2 in the world rankings, despite winning eight of their nine most recent Tests and despite completing an almost unprecedented clean sweep victory in Asia, there were no England players in the ICC’s Test team of the year.But, rather than see that as a slight, England Test captain

4:58 AM ET Madushka Balasuriya Sri Lanka have named a new-look squad for their tour of South Africa next month, with no less than eight changes being made to the side that bowed out in the group stage of the Women’s World T20 last year. The uncapped duo of Tharika Sewwandi, 18, and Umesha Thimashini,

3:00 AM ET Toss South Africa opted to bowl v Pakistan Hussain Talat shapes to play a short ball AFP / Getty Images South Africa won the toss again, but on this occasion opted to put Pakistan in to bat. Looking to bounce back from the five-wicket defeat in the first ODI, Faf du Plessis said

4:47 AM ET Pat Cummins and Travis Head have been named joint vice-captains for the two Tests against Sri Lanka, replacing the dropped Mitchell Marsh and injured Josh Hazlewood. Australia went down the route of having two people in the position to support Tim Paine before the tour of the UAE to play Pakistan, but

Jan 20, 2019 Big Picture During Australia’s dominant days of yore, there was an unabashed jostle for the second spot, contemporarily a tussle between New Zealand and India on the brink of a crescendo, with England a cut above. However, unlike the yawning chasm between Australia and the rest early into this century, neither team

4:14 AM ET ESPNcricinfo staff India arrive in New Zealand a confident bunch. They’ve just beaten Australia on their home turf. But, perhaps, somewhere the previous bilateral ODI series they played in New Zealand will be at the back of their minds: played five, lost four, tied one. India captain Virat Kohli admitted the team

11:26 AM ET Cricket West Indies (CWI) have requested the ICC insist on a first-class warm-up match ahead of every Test series in the World Test Championship. CWI were disappointed that, despite several requests to the ECB, England declined the invitation to play a first-class game ahead of the Test series in the Caribbean. Instead

12:12 PM ET ESPNcricinfo staff Vasbert Drakes, the former West Indies allrounder, has been named as one of three assistant coaches for the forthcoming Test series against England by the interim head coach ,Richard Pybus. Drakes, who played 12 Tests and 34 ODIs between 1995 and 2004, was the head coach of West Indies women

9:47 AM ET Liam Brickhill Allrounder Sune Luus has been dropped from South Africa’s ODI and T20 squads to face Sri Lanka next month. Laura Wolvaardt also misses out from the squad that took part in the World T20 two months ago, while Trisha Chetty is yet to recover from injury. Offspinner Raisibe Ntozakhe‘s bowling

3:00 AM ET The big picture The result of the Test series may be as disappointing for Mickey Arthur as it was gratifying for Otis Gibson, but in a World Cup year, it is the limited-overs results that will truly stand out. To that end, South Africa, desperate to finally snap their global tournament jinx,

Follow England’s 2018 tour of Sri Lanka: https://bit.ly/2pL01Ls It couldn’t have been any closer! After 5 spectacular days of Test cricket, England and Sri Lanka went right down to the wire at Lord’s. The final over of the match was cricket drama at its very best. #SLvENG #testcricket This is the official channel of the

5:01 PM ET Shai Hope has said he considered qualifying to play for England while at school in the country. Hope made his Test debut for West Indies against England at Bridgetown in 2015, aged just 21. But just a couple of years before that, he acknowledged it crossed his mind to go the same

3:19 PM ET England could face some tough selection decisions after a first look at the Kensington Oval surface suggested less help for seamers than was anticipated. Despite much of the talk in recent weeks suggesting the pitches in this series would be full of pace and carry, England have turned up to find a

9:05 AM ET Andrew Fidel Fernando The ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has seen a “number of people” use the 15-day amnesty period for reporting corruption-related conduct in Sri Lanka, according to ACU chief Alex Marshall. With ten days still go to in the amnesty period, during which the ACU hopes to gather evidence with which

10:48 AM ET Liam Brickhill South Africa are wary of a resurgent Pakistan team that cruised to a five-wicket win in the first of five one-day internationals in Port Elizabeth on Saturday. “We know Pakistan is a good one-day outfit,” opener Reeza Hendricks, who contributed 45 to an opening stand of 82 in the first

12:07 PM ET ESPNcricinfo staff The PCB has awarded central contracts to 17 women cricketers for the first half of 2019. In a press release, the Pakistan board said the new contracts were handed out after “the settlement of all outstanding payments from the July-December 2018 contract period”. In 2018, the women cricketers contracted with

England have to be “open-minded” about their selection policy ahead of the World Cup, according to the ODI captain, Eoin Morgan, who said he would not rule out the likes of Jofra Archer or Sam Curran making it into the final 15-man squad. Neither player will be involved in the upcoming limited-overs series in the

3:26 AM ET After Kurtis Patterson received his late-evening call from national selector Trevor Hohns to tell him to pack his bags for Brisbane, one of first people he was on the phone to – after his girlfriend, mum and dad – was New South Wales batting coach Beau Casson who the batsman has spoken